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NHN Corporation was formed in September 2001 through the merger of Hangame Communications, Inc., maker of online games, and Naver Corporation, operator of a comprehensive search portal. Both companies had been launched a few years earlier: Hangame in November 1998 and Naver in June 1999. Upon the merger the name of the company became "Next Human Network", or NHN, although both divisions continue to operate under their original brand names.

Naver and Hangame each had established affiliates in Japan in 2000. These likewise merged in October 2003 to become NHN Japan with Naver Japan and Hangame Japan as subsidiaries. In June 2004 NHN formed Ourgame, a joint venture company in China with Sea Rainbow Holdings, though NHN eventually sold its stake in October 2011. In July 2005, NHN USA was incorporated and launched the ijji game portal in May 2007. NHN sold its stake in this enterprise in December 2011.[3]

In 2008 NHN appeared on the Forbes Global 2000 list for the first time. [4] That same year NHN had the largest market capitalization among KOSDAQ-listed companies before being transferred to the Kospi market in November. In 2009 Kim Sang-Hun of NHN and Jing-Wan Kim of Samsung were the only South Korean CEOs to appear on Asia's Fab 50.[5]

In 2010 NHN bought Livedoor, a Japanese ISP and blog platform that claimed considerable resources but was undone by a trading scandal.[4] In June 2011, NHN Japan launched Line, a messaging application that quickly soared in usage. In 2012 NHN Corp announced that it planned to invest 1.5 billion South Korean won (approx. 1.35 million USD) in developing ten social media games.[6]

Naver, officially launched in 1999, was the first Korean web portal to develop its own search engine. The portal has since grown to offer a variety of related resources including communities, news, shopping resources, knowledge search, maps, books, email service, and browser toolbars.[6]

Hangame, Korea's first and largest online game portal, provides over 300 games for desktop and mobile devices. Genres include web-board, MMORPG, FPS, sports and educational games. Hangame also offers over 100 flash games that allow users can play without signing in.[7]

me2day is a microblog platform that allows users to share messages 150 characters in length.[8]

Line, a media messaging and VoIP application, was developed in response to the devastating 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Widespread damage to Japan's telecommunications infrastructure obliged NHN Japan employees to rely on Internet tools to communicate. Engineers responded with Line, and in June the company released its new resource to the public. As of November 2013, Line has over 300 million users.[9]

The accelerating success of Line led to the creation of Line Corporation in February 2013. Line Corporation, based in Japan, now houses Internet operations such as Line, Naver Japan, and Livedoor. Hangame Japan continues to develop electronic games, including those for the Line Game brand.[10]

A joint venture of NHN and Line Corporation is Line Plus, also based in Japan. Line Plus is tasked with developing overseas markets. Line Corporation holds 60% of Line Plus shares with Korean parent NHN holding the remaining 40%.[11]